Copyright registration in Panama. Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a transcontinental country in Central America and South America. Revenue from canal tolls continues to represent a significant portion of Panama’s GDP, although commerce, banking, and tourism are major and growing sectors. It is regarded as having a high-income economy. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of copyright registration in Panama.
Copyright in Panama
Unlike other intellectual property rights such as trademarks, patents, industrial designs, plant varieties, etc., copyright does not need to be registered for protection but will be automatically protected from the time the works are created.
The creation must be visible in a certain material form, like content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.
Accordingly, whether registered or not, the copyright to the work will still be protected. However, the creator should still apply for copyright registration in Panama early because early registration will give the author/owner of the work many advantages in the event of a dispute.
When unauthorized use of work occurs around the world, the owner of a work who has made a copyright registration in Panama will not have to waste time and complicate matters with proving himself/herself to be the legitimate owner of the work.
Thereby, in order to avoid passivity, the owner of the work should make a copyright registration in Panama immediately to protect their rights and interests when there is an infringement.
Copyright registration in Panama
Panama is a member country of The Berne Convention for Copyright since 1996.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (the Berne Convention) is an international agreement governing copyright. The agreement was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland, in 1886.
As Panama is a contracting party of the Berne Convention, any work originating in Panama will be given copyright protection in each of the Berne Convention member countries.
In most countries, copyright protection is automatic as soon as the work existed in material form. However, the copyright registration in Panama is critical in order for the copyright owner to obtain evidence of copyright.
Evidence of copyright is extremely important even when the works are automatically protected according to copyright law.
When registering, the work will get an application submission date, as well as information about the creation and proof of creative concept and development. This provides unambiguous proof of authorship and ownership that can’t be denied.
Proof of copyright is essential in an age when the publishing, dissemination, and theft of material is extremely easy with the exposure of the Internet.
If copyright registration is not made, copyright owners will lose a big amount of money as well as time needed to resolve issues related to copyright, proving ownership of the original work.
If the copyright owner has already registered for copyright protection to the IP office, they would have a strong legal foundation which would increase their chance of winning against the violating parties.
Documents for copyright registration in Panama
To obtain copyright registration in Panama, the author of the work needs to prepare the following documents:
- Declaration of copyright registration in Panama;
- Two copies of copyrighted work;
- Documents proving the right to apply;
- Written consent of co-authors, if the work has co-authors;
- Written consent of the co-owners, if the copyright is jointly owned;
- Notarized identity card of the author or owner of the work;
- Power of Attorney, if the applicant is an authorized person;
- Notarized copy of the company’s business registration certificate (if the owner is a company).
The copyright law of Panama
In September 2012, Panama passed a new copyright law (Bill 510). The bill is a result of negotiations in the Panama–United States Trade Promotion Agreement.
The new law gives the Panamanian copyright office (General Department of Copyright, DGDA) the power to fine those found to have violated copyright through file-sharing, and hand out fines of $100,000 ($200,000 on second offense); the offenders have fifteen days to defend themselves before being arrested.
The fines would be kept by the copyright office, which has the right to use them for salary bonuses, with none of them passed to the copyright holders. The copyright infringers however may still be separately sued by the copyright holder. The 2012 has also limited the applications of fair use in Panama.
You can see a list of Panama IP firms here.